2015
Cairn
Alice Borgna, « Scrivere del nemico. Pompeo Trogo e la storia dei Parti (Iust., XLI-XLII) », Dialogues d'histoire ancienne, ID : 10670/1.2gkbmr
This paper explores the history of Parthia in the account provided in books XLIXLII of the Epitoma Historiarum Philippicarum Pompei Trogi of Justin. The content shows that Pompeius Trogus, on a closer analysis, was not so averse to Rome as previously thought. On the other hand, by choosing to deal with an insidious subject such as the history of the enemies, he seems to be more interested in offering his readers pieces of information that, in all likelihood, were not available elsewhere. He was also interested in arranging the oral sources that he possibly collected from some members of his family, which played an important role in his account, since at least three of his relatives had held important military offices in the Roman army during the most famous eastern campaigns. I will also analyze one of the principal indications of this presumed hostility, the beginning of book XLI, where we read not only that Roman and Parthians share the supremacy of the world, but even praise of the military skills of the Parthians, whose abilities are remembered along with the three defeats suffered by the Romans. I will show how these passages cannot be automatically judged as a demonstration of hostility, because it is clear, from many other parts of the work, that for Pompeius Trogus the duration of an empire does not depend on military strength, but on the pacification and harmony (concordia) both domestic and international. This conception is not so far from the pax Augusta, which was central to contemporary propaganda.